A link to the study and some actual examples of meals and prices would help to put the article into perspective.

Also, I dont think those who are the poorest are making choices between what is healthier lean hamburger or fatty hamburger in their casserole; theyre making choices on what dollar menu items to bring home from working at McDonalds with their food credits.

It's called opportunity cost. Making food takes time. The cheaper the food, the longer the prep. Dried beans take all night.

This. If I'm working 2 or 3 shiat jobs to try to keep the rent paid, I don't have a lot of time to prepare food that takes any significant amount of time. So I'm probably either just gonna buy some pre-prepared thing at the store that I can just nuke for a few minutes, or I'm gonna swing through McDonald's.

Studies like this fail to recognize that the underlying problem here is poverty and the refusal of our country to do what we can to provide a living wage for those who work full time. Until then, saying things like "It's not that much more expensive to buy healthy food!" misses the point.

My wife has taken to a new quasi-vegan, veggie, nut, and fruit diet (She will eat an egg or a piece of fish here and there if I prepare it). Our grocery bill has doubled if not tripled in the past ~6 weeks shes been on said diet. Fresh fruits and veggies are not only expensive but much more of a pain in the ass to prepare for 3 square meals a day.

Now her energy is up, she looks and feels better, and shes lost some weight, so that's all good and fine...add to that we can afford to absorb her more expensive diet, but I know many others cannot.

A lethargic population is the key to our controlWho'd rather watch someone's life on tvthan participate in their ownMentally they feel helplessPhysically they just give upWe priced the healthy food so highthey can only buy sodapop

Endive Wombat:My wife has taken to a new quasi-vegan, veggie, nut, and fruit diet (She will eat an egg or a piece of fish here and there if I prepare it). Our grocery bill has doubled if not tripled in the past ~6 weeks shes been on said diet. Fresh fruits and veggies are not only expensive but much more of a pain in the ass to prepare for 3 square meals a day.

Depends what you're getting, and where you live of course. Sure, if you're always buying the same stuff it can be expensive if the items are out of season in your area. Right now root vegetables are plenty if you're in the North. Rutabaga is my favorite, and really cheap too. Cubed rutabaga, couple of potatoes, celery root, onions and carrots makes a nice vegetable soup or base for other dishes.

I guess it really depends on the individual and what food they are replacing.

Dropping McDonald's, Subway, and the local pizza shops from my lunch menu saves me something like $140 per month. And I'm replacing it with $20-30 worth of bagged lunches.In a typical week, the wife and I would pick up fast-food for dinner 1-2 nights a week and then a dinner out at relatively cheap restaurant. Something like $225 per month ($15 for fast food 1.5x per week, $30 for dinner at a restaurant 1x per week == .$225 per month)

Conservatively, I'm saving $300 per month and I have to pay for 13 dinners for my wife and I. That's $23 per meal. In my experience our 'healthier' alternatives cost way, way, way less than that. A bag of frozen chicken breasts, rice, and something green is awfully cheap. We'd get whole chickens too and that'd last 3-4 dinners.

For me, healthier was a lot cheaper.But it tasted like crap and took more effort.

My wife has taken to a new quasi-vegan, veggie, nut, and fruit diet (She will eat an egg or a piece of fish here and there if I prepare it). Our grocery bill has doubled if not tripled in the past ~6 weeks shes been on said diet. Fresh fruits and veggies are not only expensive but much more of a pain in the ass to prepare for 3 square meals a day.

Now her energy is up, she looks and feels better, and shes lost some weight, so that's all good and fine...add to that we can afford to absorb her more expensive diet, but I know many others cannot.

Came here to post something similar. I price everything in McDoubles, an excellent standard for caloric intake if any. Bag of celery? Two McDoubles. Bag of oranges on say? About three McDoubles. I understand completely why those on a limited income and limited access to fresh food eat where they do.

Fark_Guy_Rob:I guess it really depends on the individual and what food they are replacing.

Dropping McDonald's, Subway, and the local pizza shops from my lunch menu saves me something like $140 per month. And I'm replacing it with $20-30 worth of bagged lunches.In a typical week, the wife and I would pick up fast-food for dinner 1-2 nights a week and then a dinner out at relatively cheap restaurant. Something like $225 per month ($15 for fast food 1.5x per week, $30 for dinner at a restaurant 1x per week == .$225 per month)

Conservatively, I'm saving $300 per month and I have to pay for 13 dinners for my wife and I. That's $23 per meal. In my experience our 'healthier' alternatives cost way, way, way less than that. A bag of frozen chicken breasts, rice, and something green is awfully cheap. We'd get whole chickens too and that'd last 3-4 dinners.

For me, healthier was a lot cheaper.But it tasted like crap and took more effort.

how in the world do you make chicken, rice and fresh veggies taste worse than fast food?

It's called opportunity cost. Making food takes time. The cheaper the food, the longer the prep. Dried beans take all night.

This. If I'm working 2 or 3 shiat jobs to try to keep the rent paid, I don't have a lot of time to prepare food that takes any significant amount of time. So I'm probably either just gonna buy some pre-prepared thing at the store that I can just nuke for a few minutes, or I'm gonna swing through McDonald's.

Studies like this fail to recognize that the underlying problem here is poverty and the refusal of our country to do what we can to provide a living wage for those who work full time. Until then, saying things like "It's not that much more expensive to buy healthy food!" misses the point.

We would rather pay higher taxes for people to live off the government on welfare than make businesses pay a living wage. We no longer value work enough to make it pay.

Aside from factors that have already been mentioned like the fact that $1.50/person/day is actually a substantial amount for some people and that cooking healthy food takes time, poor people may not have access to healthy food in their neighborhoods or transportation to get to grocery stores or markets, and may not have facilities for cooking healthy food.

It's really easy for people who've never been there to blame the poor for what seem like bad choices. It's not enough to pull that stunt where a report or politician tries to live on a food stamp/welfare budget for a little while. Really, spend a few months relying on public transit to get to two crap jobs while living in a rooming house in a shiatty neighbourhood before you go off on how easy it is to eat well if you just bake your own organic bread and soak dried beans or some shiat.

We need a living wage, and disability and unemployment benefits high enough to actually allow people to eat healthy food. And public programs can help - Toronto actually does some of this pretty well with projects like food share that help bring reasonably-priced healthy produce to all neighbourhoods in the city, and community gardens, and communal kitchen programs at community centres so people can prepare food together and bring it home. Crap like this study makes it look like everything is about individual responsibility and overlooks deep structural problems.

Aside from factors that have already been mentioned like the fact that $1.50/person/day is actually a substantial amount for some people and that cooking healthy food takes time, poor people may not have access to healthy food in their neighborhoods or transportation to get to grocery stores or markets, and may not have facilities for cooking healthy food.

It's really easy for people who've never been there to blame the poor for what seem like bad choices. It's not enough to pull that stunt where a report or politician tries to live on a food stamp/welfare budget for a little while. Really, spend a few months relying on public transit to get to two crap jobs while living in a rooming house in a shiatty neighbourhood before you go off on how easy it is to eat well if you just bake your own organic bread and soak dried beans or some shiat.

We need a living wage, and disability and unemployment benefits high enough to actually allow people to eat healthy food. And public programs can help - Toronto actually does some of this pretty well with projects like food share that help bring reasonably-priced healthy produce to all neighbourhoods in the city, and community gardens, and communal kitchen programs at community centres so people can prepare food together and bring it home. Crap like this study makes it look like everything is about individual responsibility and overlooks deep structural problems.

This.

See the first episode of 30 days where Morgan Spurlock has to live on minimum wage for a month. Powerful stuff. You find that the reason people make "poor" choices is because they are actually the only rational choice. I

They got a bad rap right after WWII when cheap, badly made pressure cookers started exploding, but a modern unit has more safety features than you can shake a stick at.

Between a pressure cooker and a crock pot, you can pretty easily manage to work for a living and still have time to cook healthy food.Really, the problem in America is that fresh produce is entirely too expensive. If you have an asian marketplace nearby, be sure to check out their produce section. They are often much, much cheaper.

It's called opportunity cost. Making food takes time. The cheaper the food, the longer the prep. Dried beans take all night.

If you want to be able to make fresh food quickly, you should really, really get a pressure cooker.

You can make dried bans without soaking in under an hour. Fresh veggies cook in a fraction of the time. Inexpensive tough cuts of meat become tender enough to fall apart in no time at all compared to any other method.

They got a bad rap right after WWII when cheap, badly made pressure cookers started exploding, but a modern unit has more safety features than you can shake a stick at.

Between a pressure cooker and a crock pot, you can pretty easily manage to work for a living and still have time to cook healthy food.Really, the problem in America is that fresh produce is entirely too expensive. If you have an asian marketplace nearby, be sure to check out their produce section. They are often much, much cheaper.

This is because we subsidize everything EXCEPT fruits and green vegetables. We subsidize corn and meat.

Katie98_KT:Fark_Guy_Rob: I guess it really depends on the individual and what food they are replacing.

Dropping McDonald's, Subway, and the local pizza shops from my lunch menu saves me something like $140 per month. And I'm replacing it with $20-30 worth of bagged lunches.In a typical week, the wife and I would pick up fast-food for dinner 1-2 nights a week and then a dinner out at relatively cheap restaurant. Something like $225 per month ($15 for fast food 1.5x per week, $30 for dinner at a restaurant 1x per week == .$225 per month)

Conservatively, I'm saving $300 per month and I have to pay for 13 dinners for my wife and I. That's $23 per meal. In my experience our 'healthier' alternatives cost way, way, way less than that. A bag of frozen chicken breasts, rice, and something green is awfully cheap. We'd get whole chickens too and that'd last 3-4 dinners.

For me, healthier was a lot cheaper.But it tasted like crap and took more effort.

how in the world do you make chicken, rice and fresh veggies taste worse than fast food?

Maybe it's the result of being raised on fast food but I'd take McDonald's over Thanksgiving dinner. I struggle to eat vegetables, even well prepared ones - but a Wendy's Triple burger is amazing. I'd take a large pepperoni pizza over an expensive steak too. I basically have the taste preferences of a fat six year old.

I don't give a shiat any more. I just don't. You can argue whatever you like, I'm simply sick and farking tired of any argument on why in one of the richest places on earth we have people going hungry, lacking medical care and basic shelter.

I don't give a fark if lazies take advantage, I don't give a fark if my hard earned bucks go to helping someone lazy and selfish and shiatty. If that's the price of everyone getting enough, I'm farking okay with it.

Anything else is just farking evil. I can't sit by in my warm coat and watch someone else shivering and listen to arguments about why they deserve to be cold. fark that. First let's get them warm, then let's figure out why they're cold and how to keep it fixed. If we have to help some broken people too...good.

And I'm the atheist. I'm the one some of you like to call whore (sex worker, please). If you think my ilk is immoral and I'm saying this...where the farkity fark do you get off? How does anyone who calls themselves a christian not on board with the same thing?

My wife has taken to a new quasi-vegan, veggie, nut, and fruit diet (She will eat an egg or a piece of fish here and there if I prepare it). Our grocery bill has doubled if not tripled in the past ~6 weeks shes been on said diet. Fresh fruits and veggies are not only expensive but much more of a pain in the ass to prepare for 3 square meals a day.

Now her energy is up, she looks and feels better, and shes lost some weight, so that's all good and fine...add to that we can afford to absorb her more expensive diet, but I know many others cannot.

Quit buying the veggies and fruits at a whole foods type store. Visit the farmers market. Start spending 1 or 2 dollars for something rather than 5 or 6.

We go to our preferred farmers market (there's about 3 or 4 in the area) and spend less than $25 bucks each week, most of the time under 20, and have fruits and veggies for every meal.

Lady Indica:I don't give a shiat any more. I just don't. You can argue whatever you like, I'm simply sick and farking tired of any argument on why in one of the richest places on earth we have people going hungry, lacking medical care and basic shelter.

I don't give a fark if lazies take advantage, I don't give a fark if my hard earned bucks go to helping someone lazy and selfish and shiatty. If that's the price of everyone getting enough, I'm farking okay with it.

Well, see, it's simple. If you love America, you have to first give no shiats about the people who are America. Or something.

I enjoy a little fast food/junk food now and then, but stopped going to those places nearby because of car lines. People just sitting and waiting, rather than parking and walking inside. McD's should offer a discount for doing just that.

Now when I was a boyMy daddy sat me on his kneeAnd he told meHe told me many thingsAnd he said sonThere's alot of things in this worldYou're gonna have no use forAnd when you get blueAnd you've lost all your dreamsThere's nothin like a campfireAnd a can of beans

It's called opportunity cost. Making food takes time. The cheaper the food, the longer the prep. Dried beans take all night.

By and large, I don't think even the poor are that lacking in downtime. As for beans, it's not like you're having to stand there watching while they soak, and you can certainly make a larger amount ahead so that one prep interval serves for several meals. I think the convenience factor (a polite term for laziness) and taste are most of why people gravitate toward fast food. What's not to like about quick carbs and fat?

Wow. Lots of anger in this thread at what is essentially good news. Getting the word out that eating healthy isn't only for the wealthy is a good thing. It's like a lot of people are actually angry that it is only $1.50 more a day to eat healthy. It isn't news to those of us who already grocery shop and cook at home. But it is good to educate people.

Make home ec a required course in high school again, remove all subsidies from meat and corn so the price will go up, and subsidize leafy and green vegetables so the price goes down. Once the cost of a healthy diet is less than the unhealthy diet, which will be soon after the subsidy changes, then tax fast food like tobacco is taxed and put the revenue towards health care spending.

Endive Wombat:Fresh fruits and veggies are not only expensive but much more of a pain in the ass to prepare for 3 square meals a day.

Very true, and more importantly, they don't keep. For poor people who don't have easy access to transportation, actually getting to a grocery store can be a huge hassle, so they often tend to go once a month and do all of their SNAP/WIC shopping in one go. I'm sure you've been to the grocery store on the first of the month at some point and seen that for yourself. shiatty, processed food keeps indefinitely and that makes it a necessary evil for a lot of people.

It's called opportunity cost. Making food takes time. The cheaper the food, the longer the prep. Dried beans take all night.

This. If I'm working 2 or 3 shiat jobs to try to keep the rent paid, I don't have a lot of time to prepare food that takes any significant amount of time. So I'm probably either just gonna buy some pre-prepared thing at the store that I can just nuke for a few minutes, or I'm gonna swing through McDonald's.

Studies like this fail to recognize that the underlying problem here is poverty and the refusal of our country to do what we can to provide a living wage for those who work full time. Until then, saying things like "It's not that much more expensive to buy healthy food!" misses the point.

In addition, cooking is a skill. Some argue that it's easy, and it is to some, but not to everyone. Some people are better kept from attempting to boil eggs, much less cook a decent meal. Some people also have no idea how to cook.

That is how society has gotten where it has, cooks cook for everyone, sewer workers and plumbers do their part for everyone, technology developers do what they do for everyone. We're a specialized society, gone is the necessity to learn a little bit about everything. Yet, we're educated that way. We try to teach all students everything and make little room for helping them find and develop the skills that they have a knack for, so that they can make a good wage doing that without overtaxing themselves.

Also, some of that. You are simply not going to eradicate people who take advantage of the system. They are only part of the total package. Anyone who doesn't succeed isn't automatically a lazy freeloader.

Our society has some great flaws, among them not taking care of the less fortunate.

Not that it matters, so many flaws in our society are self sustaining, self perpetuating cycles. We're doomed without some radical change.

Lady Indica:I don't give a shiat any more. I just don't. You can argue whatever you like, I'm simply sick and farking tired of any argument on why in one of the richest places on earth we have people going hungry, lacking medical care and basic shelter.

I don't give a fark if lazies take advantage, I don't give a fark if my hard earned bucks go to helping someone lazy and selfish and shiatty. If that's the price of everyone getting enough, I'm farking okay with it.

Anything else is just farking evil. I can't sit by in my warm coat and watch someone else shivering and listen to arguments about why they deserve to be cold. fark that. First let's get them warm, then let's figure out why they're cold and how to keep it fixed. If we have to help some broken people too...good.

And I'm the atheist. I'm the one some of you like to call whore (sex worker, please). If you think my ilk is immoral and I'm saying this...where the farkity fark do you get off? How does anyone who calls themselves a christian not on board with the same thing?

/this is why I'll never be rich//and I'm FINE with that

Hey, it's not like they're people. If they were people, of course we should help them, but this is America, and in the greatest country that ever was or ever shall be, no one who is a person ever becomes poor.

So helping all the non-people is just a useless drain taking away from real people.

ThrobblefootSpectre:Getting the word out that eating healthy isn't only for the wealthy is a good thing. It's like a lot of people are actually angry that it is only $1.50 more a day to eat healthy.

No, it implies that it's a simple thing to remedy that makes people angry. It's based in ignorance and/or stupidity, this naive over-simplification.

Adding $1.50 a day to wages will not necessarily improve one's health. It is a much more complex issue and people write it off as if it's not. That is what gets people's panties in a bind. It's too much "let them eat cake". If you can't see that, you're very likely part of the problem.

Between a pressure cooker and a crock pot, you can pretty easily manage to work for a living and still have time to cook healthy food.Really, the problem in America is that fresh produce is entirely too expensive. If you have an asian marketplace nearby, be sure to check out their produce section. They are often much, much cheaper.

Pressure cookers are great, but the cheapest one I see listed in stock at Target is $40 (and that's one thing I wouldn't get from a thrift store), and you do need access to kitchen facilities, which you may not have in a rooming house, shelter, couch-surfing, etc. A crock pot is great, you can often find them second hand, and you may be able to use one even if you don't have a full kitchen.

Quit buying the veggies and fruits at a whole foods type store. Visit the farmers market. Start spending 1 or 2 dollars for something rather than 5 or 6.

When I was really poor, the closest farmers' market was about 5 miles away, I didn't have a car, and transit cost $5.50 for a return trip. And it was open only on Thursdays from 4-7, when I was at work (there were other farmers' markets with other hours, but almost always at times I couldn't get there. McDonalds and convenience stores, on the other hand, are open late or 24 hours). And I only had enough room in a shared fridge for a few things, so a once-a-week shopping trip was impossible. It wouldn't have been a solution.

It's called opportunity cost. Making food takes time. The cheaper the food, the longer the prep. Dried beans take all night.

By and large, I don't think even the poor are that lacking in downtime. As for beans, it's not like you're having to stand there watching while they soak, and you can certainly make a larger amount ahead so that one prep interval serves for several meals. I think the convenience factor (a polite term for laziness) and taste are most of why people gravitate toward fast food. What's not to like about quick carbs and fat?

Fine, if you have room to store food prepared in advance. And beans still need to be supplemented with vegetables, which can be expensive.

Lady Indica:I don't give a shiat any more. I just don't. You can argue whatever you like, I'm simply sick and farking tired of any argument on why in one of the richest places on earth we have people going hungry, lacking medical care and basic shelter.

I don't give a fark if lazies take advantage, I don't give a fark if my hard earned bucks go to helping someone lazy and selfish and shiatty. If that's the price of everyone getting enough, I'm farking okay with it.

Anything else is just farking evil. I can't sit by in my warm coat and watch someone else shivering and listen to arguments about why they deserve to be cold. fark that. First let's get them warm, then let's figure out why they're cold and how to keep it fixed. If we have to help some broken people too...good.

And I'm the atheist. I'm the one some of you like to call whore (sex worker, please). If you think my ilk is immoral and I'm saying this...where the farkity fark do you get off? How does anyone who calls themselves a christian not on board with the same thing?

/this is why I'll never be rich//and I'm FINE with that

THIS.

I was really lucky - when I was struggling, I worked next to a yuppie grocery store that had a ton of healthy prepared food. Buying a good meal (chicken, steamed vegetables, some brown rice or quinoa) cost between $5-7 - more than McDonalds for sure, but I could manage it a lot of the time and I didn't have to worry about the time or cost of getting to where I could buy it, where or when I was going to be able to prepare it, where I was going to store it, etc. These were all major considerations since I didn't really have access to a kitchen or more than a tiny bit of space in a fridge. Lots of people are not so lucky. I'm not poor now because of luck and a LOT of privilege (a good education, a universal health care system that let me get treatment for my major depression, and middle-class friends and family who helped me out enough that I was never homeless, hired me for freelance work, and let me know about job openings, including the one I eventually got.)

Anyone who hasn't been poor (real long-term poor with no prospect of things getting better, not the poor you were when you ate Ramen in grad school) needs to be very careful about giving advice or talking about how easy healthy choices are.

Lady Indica:I don't give a shiat any more. I just don't. You can argue whatever you like, I'm simply sick and farking tired of any argument on why in one of the richest places on earth we have people going hungry, lacking medical care and basic shelter.

I don't give a fark if lazies take advantage, I don't give a fark if my hard earned bucks go to helping someone lazy and selfish and shiatty. If that's the price of everyone getting enough, I'm farking okay with it.

Anything else is just farking evil. I can't sit by in my warm coat and watch someone else shivering and listen to arguments about why they deserve to be cold. fark that. First let's get them warm, then let's figure out why they're cold and how to keep it fixed. If we have to help some broken people too...good.

And I'm the atheist. I'm the one some of you like to call whore (sex worker, please). If you think my ilk is immoral and I'm saying this...where the farkity fark do you get off? How does anyone who calls themselves a christian not on board with the same thing?

Lady Indica:I don't give a shiat any more. I just don't. You can argue whatever you like, I'm simply sick and farking tired of any argument on why in one of the richest places on earth we have people going hungry, lacking medical care and basic shelter.

I don't give a fark if lazies take advantage, I don't give a fark if my hard earned bucks go to helping someone lazy and selfish and shiatty. If that's the price of everyone getting enough, I'm farking okay with it.

Anything else is just farking evil. I can't sit by in my warm coat and watch someone else shivering and listen to arguments about why they deserve to be cold. fark that. First let's get them warm, then let's figure out why they're cold and how to keep it fixed. If we have to help some broken people too...good.

And I'm the atheist. I'm the one some of you like to call whore (sex worker, please). If you think my ilk is immoral and I'm saying this...where the farkity fark do you get off? How does anyone who calls themselves a christian not on board with the same thing?

/this is why I'll never be rich//and I'm FINE with that

Get off your high horse.

Vast majority of the food kitchens and pantries in this country are supported, staffed, and ran by local churches. And they are open to anyone in need.

I won't call your ilk immoral, but I will point out that the sex industry is pretty notorious for paying under the table - i.e. your ilk is not paying the tax money that would go to support programs like this.

Personally, I am fine with that - I prefer to donate my time and money directly to things that help those in need instead of giving it to the government to F around with and maybe help someone.

People are willing to judge or advise the poor in complete ignorance of their living conditions and the constraints on their actions to help themselves. A lot of people are moralizing bastards and they are not helping. Some of these are all the usual suspects--Scrouges, billionaires, conservatives, others are liberals and thus ostensibly trying to help. Ignorance doesn't help though. It doesn't help to do things for people in the belief that they are stupid and helpless, for example.

I have seen poverty around me and I have lived on low incomes for a considerable time before gettting a decent paying permanent job. I know something but perhaps not a lot about what it is like to be poor. My special circumstances have allowed me to see a whole range of social conditions. My rural family is close to all classes of people from the richest to the poorest. I mean we have neighbours, friends, family, and business partners, employees and associates from billionaires to white trash and even natives, from old political families to new arrivals.

Judge not, least ye be judged, for that measure you mete shall be meted out to you.

I found, while poor, that two of the best friends a person trying to eat on nothing a week was a five pound bag of potatoes (the quality is abominable from low end grocery stores) and a three pound bag of good eating apples (I like Royal Galas, McIntosh, or Spartans, among others).

When you are sick of eating apples, you can use a bit of cinnamon and sugar if you have it, and bake them.

Potatoes can be eaten with the skin if in good shape or peeled and roasted or boiled. You can make your own french fries with cooking oil. This can be done with less oil if you do it in the oven or a frying pan.

Lots of nutrition for $3 a bag or $2.50-$5.00 for the potatoes.

A bag of smallish apples will give you two a day for a cost of 25 cents each. A bag of potatoes will, even with a large loss due to damage and spoilag, meet a big chunk of your caloric requirements for a week.

For $1.50 a day you can easily add both to your diet and drop a lot of junk food snacks and some meals. Don't large size it.

The other good things to buy are the crap that poor old people live on: tea, bread, peanut butter, milk, cookies (especially the healthier kinds), jam (surprisingly nourishing, what with all that pectin--soluble fruit fibre), and a tin of tuna or salmon. Old Age Pensioners know how to live on nothing and feed a cat as well. Bless them and be as like them as you can.

The thing is that it's impossible for anyone to ever again eat healthy. This is because the Secret Muslim 0bama has put everyone into rooming houses that don't have refrigerators, stoves, or even hot plates. No one has cars or can even walk, they have to take a communist bus that costs $6.66 to go anywhere and takes 4 hours just to get up the street one mile. He even stole the produce sections out of all the supermarkets and hidden them in Area 51 preventing the lucky few from even getting the green stuff. BEWARE! The Communist Muslim Anti-Veggie Squad is COMING FOR YOU!! And they will force feed you chicken nuggets, cola, and tater-tots until you look like Mr Creosote.

It's called opportunity cost. Making food takes time. The cheaper the food, the longer the prep. Dried beans take all night.

By and large, I don't think even the poor are that lacking in downtime. As for beans, it's not like you're having to stand there watching while they soak, and you can certainly make a larger amount ahead so that one prep interval serves for several meals. I think the convenience factor (a polite term for laziness) and taste are most of why people gravitate toward fast food. What's not to like about quick carbs and fat?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAGuess how I know you have never been, or even known someone, really poor.I work 4 jobs and take classes. Frequently I have less than 30 minutes to make and eat dinner before I have to be gone again.

When you think about prep time, think about all the conveniences you use. (You are just lazy for having a refrigerator and not going and getting ice for a cooler. And a blender is just laziness - you could do that with a spoon and some elbow grease!). Poor people may not have access to those. When computing the costs, people forget to put a value on the time it takes - you could be out earning a wage instead of dinkin around in the kitchen. Take the amount of time it takes to make the food (start to finish - no assuming you start out with everything chopped, skinned or otherwise prepared like cook books do) and multiply that times your hourly wage. Add that in to the price of the supplies. NOW compare it to fast food costs.

I have a book by an artist on how to feed yourself on $15 a week. Now, this is hard core stuff. Most of the poor can spend a lot more than a starving artist, and would disdain a diet based on rice, especially brown rice, which is much healthier and can be very tasty.

But if you are Chinese or willing to eat like a Chinese peasant, you can live on a diet based around boiling or steaming a big pot of rice at the beginning of the week. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Monotonous, but that is a great way to avoid becoming fat while you are starivng.

Christopher Lea Dunning. The One Recipe Recipe Book, or The Artist's Friend.

What a posh name. Perhaps he was voluntary poor, namely refusing help from his well-off parents. I don't know.

It's a great book if you live in a town where you can find eggplant, taro, hairy melon, black moss and other relatively exotic Asian ingredients. Try to live in or near China Town, or within easy walkig distance of hipsters and bohemians. Good advice even if you are not poorest of the poor.

Eating like a millionaire is a lot cheaper and healthier than living like a trucker or a temp. Use the hipster's savoir faire and savoir vivre to steal ideas from Chinese, Indian, Eastern European or Latino peasants.

Ironically, many people in the Mediterranean countries can no longer afford a Mediterranean diet, but you are lucky if you can, so consider it.